This invention relates to whisker-reinforced ceramics consisting essentially of silicon oxynitride (Si.sub.2 N.sub.2 O) reinforced by SiC whiskers.
Recently, there is a need for ceramic materials which have high strength and high toughness and also have excellent resistibilities against abrasion, chipping, oxidation and heat, used for cutting tools, automobile engine parts, such as ceramic valves or the like, and heat engine parts, such as gas turbine rotors or the like.
As a ceramic material which has excellent oxidation resistance and heat resistance, there is known silicon oxynitride. There are also known such that SiC powder is added to Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 and SiO.sub.2, and the resultant mixture is sintered to obtain ceramic materials having high-temperature strength (for example, Japanese Patent-Kokai Publication No. 54-123110 (1979)), or that CeO.sub.2 is added to Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 and SiO.sub.2 to obtain high-strength sintered bodies of silicon oxynitride (Annual Meeting of Ceramic Society of Japan, Preprint 3A25).